Thursday 3 September 2015

Lab Session 1
OBJECT

Introduction to Microsoft SQL Server 2008.

INTRODUCTION

Microsoft is the seller of SQL Server. The newest version is “SQL Server 2014”. I have different editions of SQL Server, where SQL Server Express is free to download and use.


SQL Server uses T­SQL (Transact­SQL). T­SQL is Microsoft's patented delay to SQL. T­SQL is very similar to standard SQL, but in addition it supports some extra functionality, built­in functions, etc. T­SQL expands on the SQL standard to include technical programming, local variables, various support functions for string processing, data processing, mathematics, etc.

SQL Server consists of a Database Engine and a Management Studio (and lots of other stuff which I will not mention here). The Database engine has no graphical interface ­ it is just a service running in the background of your computer (better on the server). The Management Studio is graphical tool for configuring and viewing the information in the database. It can be installed on the server or on the client (or both).



SQL SERVER MANAGEMENT STUDIO


SQL Server Management Studio is a GUI tool included with SQL Server for configuring, managing, and administering all components within Microsoft SQL Server. The tool includes both script editors and graphical tools that work with objects and features of the server. As stated earlier, version of SQL Server Management Studio is also available for SQL Server Express Edition, for which it is known as SQL Server Management Studio Express.

A central feature of SQL Server Management Studio is the Object Explorer, which allows the user to browse, select, and act upon any of the objects within the server. It can be used to visually detect and evaluate query plans and optimize the database performance, among others. SQL Server Management Studio can also be used to create a new database, alter any existing database schema by adding or modifying tables and indexes, or analyze performance. It includes the query windows which provide a GUI based interface to write and execute queries.
When creating SQL commands and queries, the “Query Editor” (select “New Query” from the Toolbar) is used (shown in the figure above).
With SQL and the “Query Editor” I can do almost everything with code, but sometimes it is also a good idea to use the different Designer tools in SQL to help us do the work without coding (so much).

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